


Lost Violent Souls: Like Lightning From Heaven

by mabus101



Series: Lost Violent Souls [4]
Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: End of the World, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 12:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mabus101/pseuds/mabus101





	1. Skyfall

For the last year, Lews Therin had believed it was no longer possible for him to be astonished. He had seen cities burned whole out of the Earth. He had seen monsters out of children's tales made into flesh. He had seen the thousand wonders of the world made weapons, one by one. He had never seen this.

"I thought this project was terminated when Sammael defected," he breathed faintly, stretching out a hand to touch the nearest one.

"It nearly was," Culan agreed. "I had to take over the funding." Lews laid a hand on the black metal surface, neither cold nor hot and perfectly smooth. The armor was contoured to match a human body, though roughly, its faceplate utterly smooth and blank. The exterior matched a Trolloc or an Ogier in size. Of course, that said little about its capabilities. He would have to examine the specs.

"I could survive a citybuster balestrike in that," he mused. "How much of an impact could I take?" 

Culan gave a little shrug. "The absorption's not perfect or you couldn't club someone with heartstone."

"Terminal velocity?"

"I guess, with enough padding. Why? What are you planning, Lews?"

"You can't open a Gateway to Shayol Ghul. How many heartstone suits?"

This time Culan stared at him openly. "Hundred-fifty or so. Lews, tell me-"

"Perfect. Prep everything you've got. We have one last chance to win this war. I won't let it slip by."

*****

"Ilyena," Latra Posae asked sternly, "what is he planning?"

Ilyena considered for a moment. "What are any of us planning any longer? He's planning for the end of the war. However that comes now." She plucked at her once-fine trousers, now worn and dirty. "When did you eat last, Latra? What did you eat?"

"A ration bar, last night. More than some people get." She rubbed at her temples. "I'm running low on painkillers."

"You shouldn't be taking them, Latra. When did you take that wound? A month ago?"

"It was Shayol Ghul steel, Ilyena. Stop evading me. Is your husband still planning to set seals on the Bore?"

Ilyena shook her head. "He can't. Not even if he wanted to. Not only is that entire latitude belt geologically unstable now, space-time is growing too warped to Travel anywhere near the Pit of Doom."

"Then that threat, at least, is over." Latra bowed her head. "What about the keys?"

"Asmodean detonated a vacuole mine," Ilyena muttered. "That pair is gone. The others...I don't know, Latra. We keep searching but there's been no sign. What if they're all gone?"

"I don't know. We keep fighting. We keep hoping."

"Latra," Ilyena warned, "that's not going to be enough."

*****

"Everyone better be suited up!" Lews bellowed. "Secure the seals!" Forty-nine compartments snapped shut.

"Lews," Culan said, his face hidden behind the helmet plate, "you have to tell me what's going on. You can't--"

"A surprise attack," Lews Therin said. "A strike at Shayol Ghul." He put his hands together, armor servos whirring, and spread them suddenly apart. Before them a gateway sprang open, a gateway into endless dark, and a wind howled into being as the air poured into the vacuum beyond. "Forward!" He released the magnagrips and leapt.

In darkness he hung there as the Hundred spilled out behind him, and the commando team after. Below him lay the globe of the Earth. Below him, the one remaining pathway to Shayol Ghul: straight down. "Like lightning from heaven," he said over the callbox relay, "we fall!"


	2. Hell Flames and Fury

Ilyena strode forward, the click of her shoes on the floor somehow not echoing through the endless halls, her guide scurrying ahead of her, bowing and glancing nervously at the ball of fire that floated above her palm. "Come," the Aelfinn hissed. "Come."

She glanced at the alien woman, and in that moment the hall of meeting opened up. The three pillars rose ahead of her, with two men and a woman; her guide was gone. "Speak, honored ambassador," said the woman in the middle.

Ilyena lifted her head. "When the Dark One destroys and remakes the world, what has he promised you?"

The sharpest of hisses, an intake of collective breath. "Nothing," said the man on the right, and the man on the left echoed, "Nothing."

"Considerations were offered, but refused," the woman in the middle said, her voice a whipcrack. "We would be dependent on no other for our sustenance. Our food is your fate."

"Your question is an _insult_ ," said the man on the right, his words bitten off sharply. "Payment--"

"Then who deceived Amaresu?" Ilyena cut him off before he could make the official demand. "Do not think to deceive me as well. The ter'angreal she asked after were present but destroyed. Someone gave true information, only to feed that information to the Shadow. Nor can they plead binding to the Treaty when the gateway has been in my possession the entire time. Friends of the Dark may be found in all lands and among all people. That we have failed to put you in that category is our own bias, I suppose."

A motion off to her side; a scuffle she sensed but could not see; a figure in wrappings dragged before the pillars. "As you wish, 'honored ambassador'. I leaked the information to a Friend of the Dark. But you are both right and wrong. They may be found among all people indeed; look to your own household, Ilyena Therin Moerelle."

"Do you wish to know the enemy, honored ambassador?" asked the man on the left.

Ilyena shook her head. "I have a different question: how will you aid us against the Shadow to repay this wrong?"

*****

Aginor flickered out of the ruins of Paaren Disen, the world screaming as he went, and into the citadel on the slopes of Shayol Ghul. He knew at a glance how many were present: fourteen survivors, still lacking Ishamael, and he would surely--ah, yes, in through the doorway he came.

The ground rumbled and shook. Unless the Dark One saw fit to correct it, the instability created by the Skybridge's fall would last for centuries, raising a new mountain range where the cuendillar tether had cut through the crust of the Earth.

"My friends," said the Betrayer of Hope, "welcome. We must make certain final considerations, but victory is at hand."

"It had better be," Sammael grumbled. "Right now my forces are encircling the Army of the Light at Shona Keshor. If I am not there when they strike--"

"If you were half the planner you thought you were," Ashareth taunted, "your armies wouldn't need one of the Chosen on hand to pull their fat out of the fire."

"Silence," Ishamael intoned. "The confrontation at Shona Keshor is of secondary importance. Little stands between our remaining adversaries and starvation. We must--"

This time, the quake knocked him off his feet and failed to end. Tremor after tremor wracked the ground, till all save himself and Lanfear were shaken to the floor (and his own defense, at least, was badly strained).

"Darkness within! What was that?" Rahvin bellowed.

Be'lal smiled, rising to his feet. "A contingency I am well prepared for. Ishamael, if I may?"

For once, the Betrayer seemed at a loss for words. After a moment, though, he nodded, and Be'lal snapped his fingers twice. Nothing obvious resulted, though he pulled a crystalline blade from the scabbard he wore at his side. Something dimly felt in the scabbard snapped; it was an angreal seed?

Two women emerged from one of the side doors, one small and very dark, the other tall and olive-skinned. Their eyes were glassy and vacant, but their lips curled in a predatory grin. Turned and Compelled both? What purpose could require such extreme measures? "Link with me," said Be'lal, and at once they did so. Then he reached through the blade and drew in an unimaginable torrent of saidin.

"My wayward nephew-in-law has come for the wedding present he never received," Be'lal said with a chilling smile. "I must see that he gets it at last. If you see Lews Therin, leave him to me."

Eyebrows raised, even Ishamael agreed.

*****

Ilyena walked down a different set of corridors, angular where the last had been curved. This time, too, she followed a guide, though this man bowed nervously every few steps, obsequious fear belying his predatory appearance.

"You are expected, honored ambassador," a voice barked, and suddenly she was in a star-shaped room. "For what boons have you come?"

"First, bring me the member of my family who betrayed state secrets to the Forsaken." That should cover her; she wasn't sure whether the Eelfinn had family relationships of the sort humans did, but they apparently understood them.

"Done," said one of them; this time, she couldn't make out the speaker.

"Second, I want troops from _Sindhol_ to reinforce my army at Shona Keshor." _That_ got their attention.

Three heads popped up. "What?" they asked, first from right to left and then in unison. "No one has ever asked."

"The price will be steep."

"Do you really wish this?"

Ilyena shrugged. "I have few options. Would it be safer simply to ask for victory?" The Eelfinn looked one to another and, of course, said nothing. "As I expected. Yes, send sufficient troops to defeat our attackers."

"Then done, and so be it."

"You may ask one more boon."

"I am willing to die to defeat the Shadow," Ilyena said, "but I would like to live to see my husband in the flesh at least once more."

"Easily done," the Eelfinn replied. "Now we must discuss price."

*****

Lews Therin hurt all over. His body felt like one giant bruise. "You spoke true, Culan Cuhan. It is a landing we can walk away from indeed."

"We must do more than walk." Culan pointed to the lip of the crater. Above their heads, Forsaken were appearing.

"Vivisector!" Lews Therin shouted. "I know not what you have done to yourself, but you matched me at the Hall of the Servants!" Aginor was a genius, however twisted, but the Vivisector had never been of more than middling strength in the Power. Somehow that had changed. "Shall we fight man to man again?"

Aginor lifted one eyebrow and offered a thin, malicious smile. "And risk the genius that determined how to grow beyond one's bounds in the One Power? I think not." He fell back. "That honor belongs to another."

Saidin roared like a booster rocket at liftoff, and Lews Therin, clad in armor that ten men could not lift unaided, was plucked from the pit like a pebble from the river. "Greetings, nephew," Be'lal said. "Have you perhaps come for your gift?" He held aloft a crystal sword. "Come and take it."

"All troops," Lews ordered, "descend and attack! Companions, attack! Fire at will!"

Thrust engines echoed from the cliffs of Shayol Ghul as the warmen dropped below the cloud cover. Shocklances erupted with energy, gravguns pelted the surrounding Trollocs with automatic fire, and blades deployed from armored forearms.

Lews Therin manifested a blade of flames. The last battle had begun.


End file.
